The curtain-raiser this evening at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park was an exciting affair, with fortunes swinging one way then the other. It was, perhaps, inevitable that this Junior football decider would end level, with Bonniconlon bagging three late scores to earn a 1-9 to 2-6 draw against Cill Chomáin.
Early on in this contest there was only one team in it. Bonniconlon raced into a 1-2 to 0-0 lead, the goal from James Harrington, with over twenty minutes having been played before Cill Chomáin scored at all.
Then former (and perhaps future) Mayo player Justin Healy claimed a high ball in, leaving two defenders sprawling as he turned and fired it to the net.
Soon after that Bonniconlon lost Seán Neary to what looked like an extremely innocuous second yellow. It was a hugely harsh decision and left Bonniconlon with a significant disadvantage, having to battle on with fourteen players for over half the game.
They still went in at half-time three in front but a point and a goal from Justin Healy early in the second half turned the tide strongly in Cill Chomáin’s direction. They went on to lead by three points but, even though they looked the likely winners at that stage, they never pulled away and that gave Bonniconlon the chance that they ultimately took to claim something from this contest.
Bonniconlon’s late surge saw them notch the final three points of the game, one from Jonathan Lavelle, followed by a spectacular sideline effort followed by a free by substitute David Walsh.
It was no more than they deserved and so Bonniconlon and Cill Chomáin must go again in a replay that expected to be played next weekend.
Separately, Tooreen this afternoon opened their defence of their Connacht IHC title in fine style, beating Roscommon’s Four Roads in the quarter-final. That game, played at Dr Hyde Park, ended in a 2-25 to 3-12 win for Tooreen.
Our Final Whistle podcast show on this evening’s Junior final, featuring Cill Chomáin’s Justin Healy as well as New York friends of the pod, Ronan Conlon and Jimmy Gleeson, who travelled across the Atlantic for the game, is up now on Patreon – here.